Cipher (Demonica Underworld #8) - Larissa Ione Page 0,58

around, Cipher knocked Lyre to the ground, covering her with his body as debris rained down. Basketball-sized chunks pummeled his back and legs, but he’d survive. Unlike that poor bastard with his hooves sticking out under a Volkswagen-sized block of ice, his blood spreading in a pool beneath him.

“I will slaughter you where you stand!”

Bael’s voice, sounding way too close, froze the blood in Cipher’s veins. He leaped to his feet, heart pounding and pushing that frozen blood like slush that left him feeling like shit was in slow motion.

A crack of thunder shattered his eardrums a split-second before a lightning strike sizzled through him, paralyzing him where he stood. Agony became everything, his feelings, his thoughts, his vision. Because apparently, you could see pain. It was red and shiny and twisted as fuck.

Distantly, he heard Lyre’s shouts for mercy. Not mercy for her. Mercy for him.

“Stop,” she yelled. “I’ll do anything!”

“Yes,” Bael hissed. “You will.”

No! Cipher inhaled, coughing on blood as he staggered forward blindly, his only goal to reach Bael and choke the life out of him with his bare hands.

He heard a grunt, a thud, and suddenly the electrocution stopped. His ears rang and white spots floated in his vision, but the pain died to a dull roar, and as his eyes focused, he saw why.

Lyre had tackled Bael.

But she’d paid for it, was now trying to pick herself up off the ground, blood pouring from her nose and ears. Bael laughed as he punched down, hitting her in the back of the neck and dropping her as if she’d been hit with a bolt.

His fist tangled in her hair, and he brutally wrenched her head up, putting his mouth to her ear. Cipher couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he heard Lyre’s cry of terror.

“Bastard!” Cipher roared in fury and released the first weapon that came to mind, a barrage of voracious summoned demon locusts that swarmed Bael in a whirlwind of teeth.

Bael howled in pain as he was cut to ribbons, giving Lyre a chance to push to her feet.

“Come on!” Cipher held out his hand to her. “Hurry!”

She started toward him, but suddenly, the locusts fell dead. Son of a bitch! The locust swarm had drained his power by half, and Bael had circumvented it as if the locusts had been no more than a nuisance.

Bael, his ire taking on a life of its own, transformed, his body tripling in size, his skin hardening into black armor, his face taking on nightmarish, oversized features and teeth the size of Cipher’s fingers.

They couldn’t score a freaking break.

With the very last of his power, he blasted Bael with his ice melt weapon, encasing the bastard from head to toe. “Lyre, run!”

“No!” She sprinted toward him, and he wanted to scream at the futility of it. She couldn’t help him. She’d just die with him.

“Go!”

A detonation of ice sent piercing shards into the demons who had gathered to watch, and by some miracle both he and Lyre had escaped unscathed. Some of the demons dropped dead while others hit the ground and thrashed in pain. Still others ran.

Bael, completely ice-free, roared in fury and blasted Cipher and Lyre with some sort of weapon that sliced a million tiny cuts into the skin and peeled it away.

Agony became the very air Cipher breathed, and through his own shouts of misery, Lyre’s screams punched through, flaying his insides as well.

“You’re going to die,” Bael shouted above the thunder that rolled in from the blood-red storm clouds above. “You’re going to die, and then I’m going to feed your souls to my Orphmage while I dine on your flesh.” The fallen angel sauntered toward him. “But not before you get to watch what Moloc and I do to your precious Lyre.”

No. Please no...

Darkness started to fall. Maybe not in the realm, but in Cipher’s head. He couldn’t lift his arms, his legs, his head. Hell, he could barely open his eyes.

He saw Lyre writhing on the ground, and his heart, already riddled with wounds, bled. Tortured by the sight, he put all of his strength into reaching for her. If he could just touch her...

A demon shrieked and ran between them, nearly stepping on his arm. Then another. All around, terrified wails rose up. Suddenly, Bael spun around, his attention and restraining powers no longer focused on Cipher and Lyre.

What the hell?

Groaning, Cipher glanced at the sky. The spells...the spells had broken!

Something, or some things, were attacking the demons,